


On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

by sanssssastark



Series: Let Me See What's Underneath [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, I'm not sorry, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, The Boys Are Alive AU, it's me so this got a little deeper than the summary implies, requited love they're just idiots, you all should just know this about me by now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29602869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanssssastark/pseuds/sanssssastark
Summary: Four weeks ago, reeling from a breakup she didn't see coming, Julie Molina thought agreeing to this was a good idea. It's the cover of Rolling Stone, who cares if they want you and your band to be shirtless in order to promote your new acoustic album, Stripped Down? Most bands never even get a mention in the famous magazine, let alone a cover shoot. Except now? Now she has to be shirtless on the cover of a magazine. What was she thinking?Four weeks ago, Luke Patterson didn't even think about it when Rolling Stone told them they'd be shirtless on the cover of their magazine because, who cares? It's Rolling Stone. Except now, Julie seems freaked out, even though she was the one who agreed to it in the first place and he should have known better. What was he thinking?
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: Let Me See What's Underneath [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062191
Comments: 32
Kudos: 193





	On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

**Author's Note:**

> What started as a brief mention in Let Me See What's Underneath spiraled out of control and became it's own thing. I've had this picture of a Rolling Stone cover for JATP for so long and I'm so excited that I was eventually able to work it into a fic! I'm kind of obsessed with this universe now, so kudos and comments please as to what you'd like to see next. I'm a feedback whore, so the more I get, the more you get right back!

“This was such a bad idea,” Julie mutters fingers picking at the ridiculous sticky bra that has absolutely no hope of holding up her boobs for any amount of time. She lets out a frustrated huff, blowing a long strand of hair out of her eyes. They blew her hair out for the shoot, but then curled it again, giving it a slightly softer look.

Usually, Julie would have put up a fight. She likes keeping her hair natural, not just because she prefers it that way, but because she likes all the little girls out there with hair like hers to see her rocking it. She was too freaked out about what’s about to happen to protest too much. In fact she hadn’t even noticed what was happening until one entire side of her hair was already flattened into submission and then curled into large, shiny ringlets.

It probably won’t matter though, with the way she’s sweating—she can already feel her palms getting damp—because just a little bit of moisture is all it’ll take to get her natural frizz right back where it belongs. 

“You’ll be facing away from the camera the entire time,” Andi says, sending her a grimace from across the room as the stylist slaps Juliie’s fingers away from the rubbery surface of the only thing she’ll be wearing out into the studio aside from a pair of low riding boy shorts that basically match her skin tone. “And the boys will be completely shirtless.”

“That,” Julie says, “is not the same thing.” 

There’s music blaring from the studio where the photographer and his team are set up. She can hear it easily through the door of her dressing room. Undressing room. Whatever. It’s some awful techno pop that would normally make her ears bleed, but right now it’s kind of a welcome intrusion since her mind seems dead set listing, from least to most embarrassing, all the things that could go wrong in the next few hours.

“Why did we agree to this?” she asks her manager again, for what feels like the hundredth time since she found out about the direction the photoshoot was going to take.

“Because it’s the cover of _Rolling Ston_ e,” Andi says, not looking up from her phone this time.

And yeah, duh, Julie wants to say, but it’s...not just that. 

When they dropped their new acoustic album called _Stripped Down: The Garage Sessions_ less than two months ago, it sent their fanbase into apoplexy and debuted at number one. _Unsaid Emily_ , _Wake Up_ and _Perfect Harmony_ skyrocketed to the three top spots on the iTunes charts. And when Andi called last month and said that Rolling Stone loved it and wanted them on the cover, Julie needed something to latch onto, something that would make her feel less...unwanted.

It was two days after Nick dumped her.

It had sent her reeling, not because she was heartbroken over Nick, but because of what it made her realize...or at least finally confront after all these years. She’s in love with Luke. On the days when she’s being super honest with herself she can admit that she’s been in love with him since freshman year when he sat across from her in Harrison’s Intro to Music Theory, a class she shouldn’t have even been allowed to take, but after begging and pleading and proving she had the base knowledge, was given special permission.

At first their friendship was sort of forced, when Ms. Harrison told them to turn their desks to partner up for assignments, but they quickly found that no one in the class seemed to give a shit about any of it except for them. So they just kept partnering up through that first semester, over and over again until no one questioned it. She wasn’t in love yet, though.

She hadn’t fallen in love until just before Thanksgiving break, at the Fall Showcase. All the students in the music program had to perform solos. She’d never even heard Luke play before. They were in different performance classes for guitar and piano and the school’s vocal courses were divided up strictly by grade level.

He’d covered Chris Isask’s _Wicked Game_ which no high school sophomore should ever be able to perform with any credibility, but by the last twang of his acoustic, Julie’s mouth was dry, a swarm of butterflies were dancing in her stomach, swooping low and out of control and her heart? It was long gone.

She’d quickly buried the feeling though, because he was older and way cooler and he’d just started asking her opinion on his original lyrics and had sort of implied he’d like her to stop by one Sunset Curve’s band rehearsals and liking him like that would definitely kill whatever was happening. He respected her, _as a musician_ , and that was worth more than a stupid high school crush. Besides after that performance there wasn’t a girl, bi or straight, at Los Feliz High School for the Performing Arts who wasn’t interested in him. She didn’t want to be one of those girls. One of the many.

“If you’re really having second thoughts,” Andi says, breaking into her memory.

“No,” Julie mutters. “I just thought when I decided to front a rock band I’d avoid this bullshit,” The stylist slaps her hand away from the pasties again. She sends the woman a grimace. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” the woman says, raising a perfectly shaped and penciled-in eyebrow. “If you don't stop fiddling with it, it’ll lose its grip and I’m pretty sure that’s not what you want.” 

Julie immediately brings her hands down to her sides. That’s the last thing she needs, a major wardrobe malfunction in front of an entire photography team, two boys that may as well be her brothers and her...and Luke. 

“Okay, I think we’re done,” the stylist says, stepping back and looking Julie up and down like she somehow had a hand in what she looks like, when she’s basically naked. “Here.”

She hands Julie a long silky robe and leaves the room, while Julie rolls her eyes at Andi. “This is such a bad idea,” she repeats.

“Bad idea or not,” Andi says, with a grin, “it’s time to go do this. Game face, Molina.”

Julie nods and ties the robe’s sash around her waist tightly. 

The music on the other side of the door stops abruptly and silence reigns for about half a second before a twangy guitar riff replaces it and Julie hears Luke’s voice echoing up over into the rafters of the high ceilinged loft they’re about to take these pictures in. 

“Well, we're big rock singers. We got golden fingers. And we're loved everywhere we go,” Luke sings and Julie can’t help it, she laughs because of course right now, in the biggest moment of their careers so far, of course he’s singing.”

“That sounds like us,” Reggie chimes in.

“We sing about beauty, And we sing about truth.” 

“At ten thousand dollars a show,” Alex adds with a laugh.

Luke picks it up again, laughing through the next lyrics since they are literally the opposite of their vibe. “We take all kinds of pills, to give us all kinds of thrills, but the thrill we've never known.”

“Is the thrill that'll getcha,” Reggie follows.

And then Alex again, “When you get your picture.”

And as they round out the last verse, Julie bursts through the door, sliding on her bare feet across the smooth concrete floor, “On the cover of the Rolling Stone!” 

“Rolling Stone,” the boys sing together, grinning widely at her appearance.

“Wanna see my picture on the cover,” Julie sings, dancing up to them. They’re all shirtless and wearing what could gernously be called boxer briefs, except the stylist seems to have found ones that match their skin tones and leave almost nothing to the imagination, but Luke has his acoustic strapped across his chest and Julie chooses to focus on that. Not on the flexing of biceps and forearms with every chord or the way his hands fly over the guitar, or the hair that lines his chest that seems to only be there to highlight every cut of muscle. 

“Stone…” they hit that three part harmony that’s second nature to them and it breaks her out of her brief daze.

“Wanna buy five copies for my mother,” she sings as Luke approaches her, his eyes softening a little bit, but she smiles reassuringly at him. Did he realize she was nervous? Of course, he did. He noticed in the car on the way over from the hotel, he’d held her hand for the entire drive, squeezing softly every time her leg started bouncing uncontrollably. And so he’d stripped down to basically nothing and then come out here to sing this ridiculous song, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist. 

God, she loves him so much.

“Stone…” 

“Wanna see my smiling face,” she sings loudly and then joins them in the last bit of the chorus. “On the cover of the Rolling Stone!”

*

Luke strums that last chord with pure joy and then looks around at his band. Alex and Reggie have their arms around each other as they laugh so hard they collapse against each other and Julie’s smile is so wide and bright he can practically feel the warmth blazing off her, like she’s the sun. That's not a bad analogy. He's been orbiting around her for years.

He bites his lip, fighting back his grin as her eyes meet his and dance with the same excitement he’s feeling. He doesn’t know why he’s holding back. This was his exact motive in cutting off that bullshit EDM and grabbing his acoustic. 

She was freaked out, that much was obvious. She hadn’t held his hand the way she had in the car...since...well since he’d held a firm grip on it after her mom’s funeral while everyone walked by and told her how sorry they were for her loss. He just sat next to her in his black pants and white collared shirt and the tie he’d had to borrow from his dad so he could be there for the girl who’d become his best friend. Flynn held her other hand and she’d gripped them both like they were the only things keeping her tethered to the Earth.

Julie hadn’t sung a fucking note for nearly a year after that and his life at home had gone to complete shit. Somewhere in there he’d started to lose track of her, but then as the Fall Showcase had come around, Harrison had paired them together, her star pupils from the year before who’d turn into a grieving daughter who wouldn’t sing and the boy who had basically dropped out, if not officially, then in spirit. He still showed up because his boys were there and that was about it.

Harrison made it clear to them.

Julie had to sing to stay in the program. He had to sing to stay in school.

She invited him over to work on it and they’d gone out to her mom’s old studio, the same garage they recorded _Stripped Down_ in. It had only felt right when they got the idea to play where it had all begun. Four years ago though, walking into that studio felt like entering a sacred space, one he didn’t belong in. It was instantly clear that he was intruding while Julie wandered around slowly, taking in everything, from the tea cup on the table, to the dust cloth over the grand piano. He’d asked her if he should go and she told him no in a way that made him think she really meant yes, but then four pieces of sheet music slid out from under the piano’s cover when he leaned against it. So he’d handed her the papers and made some excuse about having to go.

He went straight home that day, walked through the door with purpose, went right to the kitchen and hugged his mom so hard he was afraid he might have left bruises.

It hadn’t fixed everything, not by a long shot, but it was the start.

A few days later, Julie texted him. 

And that had been that. She could sing again. She could play again. His human wrecking ball was back with a vengeance and the first time they ran through _Draggin’ My Heart Around_ and he heard the sultry rasp in her voice for the first time in a year he’d just stared, slack jawed and in awe before managing to stutter out. “You should join the band.” 

And it really was that simple. Bobby had left a few months before that and they needed a fourth. Julie wasn’t a fourth though. She was...everything.

They performed _Draggin’ My Heart Around_ in front of the whole school and everyone’s parents and Mrs. Harrison and Principal Lessa. She stayed in the music program. He stayed in school. Julie joined the band and every day after that was better than the one before it.

But that first time singing her with her in her mom’s old studio, that’s when he knew he was gone for good. And maybe there were a few other girls along the way, but it had never been fair to them, so sometime after he graduated he just...stopped. He poured himself into Sunset Curve, which was about to become Julie and the Phantoms, he drowned himself in music, most of which he wrote about her without even thinking about it and now here they are, about to be on the cover of _Rolling Stone_ and he still hasn’t told her.

And maybe that’s pathetic. He knows Alex and Reggie think it is, They’ve told him more than once that he’s an idiot and that he should just say something, especially now that she and Nick are over, but he’s a coward. He always has been when it comes to Julie and he always will be. And even if he wasn’t, she’s clearly still up in her head over what happened with Nick. She’s felt off for weeks. Hell, even just agreeing to this photoshoot, or at least the photographer’s vision for it, didn't quite feel like her. She’d mumbled something about it being empowering and a way to reclaim herself, which sounded way more like Flynn than Julie, but he was down for whatever she wanted to do and Alex and Reggie just shrugged, stoked about the milestone and not really giving a shit what it looked like. 

“If you’re all ready to get started,” the photographer asks and they all move to the brightly lit corner of the loft, concrete walls rising up toward metal rafters with iron framed windows letting the morning light in from floor to ceiling behind them with the Los Angeles skyline in the distance. 

Luke sets aside his six string on one of the couches, but when he turns back around, his throat goes completely dry, except he’s pretty sure he might also be drooling? Julie’s just a few feet away, pulling at the sash of her silk robe and it somehow hadn’t occurred to him until just now that a shirtless photoshoot meant he’d be _seeing_ her shirtless.

Shit. 

The black silky material slides down off her shoulders slowly out from under curls that shine in the light coming in through the windows and he has to swallow back a groan. 

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath and Alex lets out a cough to let him know he’d been louder than he thought.

“Gentlemen,” the photographer calls out and thank God, because it’s an excuse to tear his eyes away as the robe exposes the long line of her back where two dimples are peeking out just above the waistband of...are those panties? He doesn’t know the names for all the different kinds of underwear girls wear. Whatever they are, they don’t quite cover the curve of her…

Luke spins around before his brain can finish that thought, clearing his throat and following Alex and Reggie toward the photographer who is waving them in and glancing up at the light pouring in through the glass.

“We have an hour, at most,” the man says, before moving Alex and Reggie into place and sticking Luke dead center. He hands Alex a drumstick and then turns away from them to beckon Julie forward. 

Luke just keeps his eyes trained on the ground and holds his breath, bouncing on his toes to try and work off some of this...whatever this is. Is it nerves? Who the fuck knows, but it’s exhausting.

“Breathe, man,” Alex whispers, twirlinig the drumstick and then poking him gently in the ribs with it.

Luke inhales sharply and when he releases it, he looks up. 

This was such a bad idea.

She’s not naked, not by a long shot. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s seen her in bathing suits that cover less, but the way the light catches against her eyes and her hair and the sheer expanse of uninterrupted warm brown skin is enough to stun him. More than enough.

The photographer ushers her toward them and positions her with her back to the camera, directly in front of him. 

“Hey,” she says, softly, worrying her lower lip with her teeth, barely making eye contact with him. 

“Hey,” he manages to answer and the only thing keeping him from making a complete ass of himself is the fact that Reggie and Alex are so close he can actually feel them standing beside him. 

“You look great, Jules,” Alex says. “Is that weird, that I said that?”

Julie glances over to their drummer. “It’s not weird. Thanks. I’m...way more nervous than I thought I’d be.”

“I’m not nervous at all,” Reggie chimes in, smiling widely. 

“Yeah, Reg, we know, buddy. Clothes are an affront to humanity and you shouldn’t be required to wear them, except it’s embarrassing for other people, so you’ll do it for them,” Luke quotes back at him, rolling his eyes with a chuckle. Reggiie might have given them that speech a few times.

“Exactly!” Reggiie exclaims, his grin somehow growing.

Julie laughs, a soft sound, not the full throated kind that he loves to draw out of her, but when she does, she leans forward and her forehead lands gently against his chest. Something, instinct or reflex or maybe it’s just all the want he’s been saving up for the last five years, but _something_ lifts his hand from it’s rightful place at his side and it finds the curve of her hip, his fingers spreading out gently across the small of her back, his pinky stroking over those dimples that nearly made him combust earlier. Julie glances up at him, all the laughter gone from her face and his heart stutters to a stop before rioting against his ribcage.

God, he loves her so much.

And distantly, he hears the first click of the camera.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Songs:
> 
> Wicked Games by Chris Isaak (which might be the sexiest song ever? Luke definitely didn't tell Ms. Harrison he was singing it until he started)
> 
> The Cover of "Rolling Stone" by Dr. Hook (I blatantly stole this idea from Almost Famous, which you should watch immediately if you haven't)
> 
> Stop Draggin' My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty, which is...VERY much in tune with how Luke and Julie would have been feeling at that moment of their lives, not about each other, but about the whole world.


End file.
